Alan Baker
The 20th August 2024 will become a milestone date in the history of forensic science in England and Wales.
It was the day that the Tory Government’s 2012 scientific experiment into the commercialisation of the marketplace came to a grinding halt.
The Forensic Science Service (FSS) had provided nationwide forensic science provision for decades based on a model where police forces, in effect, used regional laboratories ranging from Wetherby in the north to Chepstow and London in the south.
It was an organisation that was unified in structure and in the management of quality. Despite obvious problems in certain notable cases, it was largely a respected organisation by police forces and establishments worldwide.
There were always grumbles about late delivery albeit forces didn’t directly pay for the service (it was centrally funded by the Home Office). The FSS became a trading fund in 1999 and in 2005 became a government-owned company needing to be financially self-sufficient. This resulted in the FSS testing a number of financial models; payment (by the police forces) on the basis of case type or payment on the basis of exhibit type.
The new Tory coalition government announced the end of the FSS in 2010. It is a little ironic that by the time that the labs began to close, the business was beginning to turn a financial corner and continued to have an international reputation for forensic science provision and research. The FSS closed in 2012.
The advent of a commercial marketplace meant that there were three main providers; Eurofins, Cellmark and Key (and a few smaller providers such as Scientifics). So began the endless cycle of regional contract renewals between these providers with the seeming desire by the “system” to keep all three afloat. This was, however, set against ever-decreasing pots of police money coupled with the obsessional desire for forces to do things “in-house.”
It was always going to be a cocktail for disaster, and it initially culminated in the financial collapse of Key Forensics in 2018. That organisation was seemingly bailed-out by government in an attempt to propagate the pseudo-commercial marketplace.
The status quo existed for a further 5 years until the late submission of Cellmark’s accounts for 2023. It was subsequently shown that the company was not financially viable and so it was entirely predictable that the market leader, Eurofins, decided (or was encouraged) to acquire that business and therefore control a staggering 86% of the market.
The merger/takeover was the subject of Monopolies and Mergers Commission scrutiny and who agreed to the purchase occurring in super-quick time (the quickest on record for that organisation). No surprise, perhaps, given the obvious importance of forensic science to criminal justice.
So, where does that leave English and Welsh police forces? There now exists an almost total monopoly of forensic provision with Key Forensics picking-up the leftovers.
All this is inevitable and, in my view, deeply worrying. There is no doubt as to the scientific professionalism of the hundreds of scientists who work for the now, two businesses but they are organisations that are necessarily driven by the need for profit. I do not see that this concept has any place given the experience of the last 12 years.
The continued privatisation of the marketplace is no more acceptable than would be the privatisation of a police force and just think how unacceptable that would be.
There has never been a greater need for independent scrutiny of forensic evidence and we aim to make Bericon Forensics your preferred partner in that process.